


Massachusetts Myths

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: College AU, Dorms, Enemies to Friends, F/M, First Kiss, Nerd Bellamy Blake, RA!bellarke, stuck in an elevator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 06:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13630548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: RA/University AU. Clarke covers for Raven's at the dorm where they work, and though she forgot who Raven's on-call partner is, Clarke remembers Bellamy's worst fear when the elevator stops. She’ll try anything to calm him down.They sat in silence for a moment before Bellamy looked over at her. “Thank you.”Clarke toyed with the weave of her cardigan, feeling the weight of his eyes. “You’ve been doing that a lot.”“Saying thanks?”“Staring at me.”Bellamy looked pointedly around the elevator and Clarke rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay, we’re in a metal box and there’s not much competition here.”“Well, there’s not much out there, either.”





	Massachusetts Myths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DracoTerrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoTerrae/gifts).



> For Shelby; Happy Valentines Day!!

Clarke had started the RA-on-call shift in high spirits—after all, she was covering for Raven to go on a date with that British kid from her Kinematics class, and that was enough to make anyone smile—but her good mood lasted all of thirty seconds.

Because at the thirty-one second mark, she remembered that Raven’s on-call partner was Bellamy Blake.

Raven had once asked Clarke what exactly her problem was with Bellamy, and by that point, there was a verified list.

(1) For starters, there were his speeches. He’d open his mouth, a siren’s call would exit it, and people just melted. Which was fine and all, unless he was against Clarke’s ideas, which he always and inexplicably seemed to be.

(2) Nobody seemed to mind that he seemed to see the rules as suggestions. Sure, he upheld them 98% of the time, as long as they worked for him. When they didn’t, there was a mysterious appeal to the Higher Court of Bellamy Blake Law; rules bent and everyone just nodded with approval. Usually with a sigh of how diplomatic he was, how understanding and empathetic.

(3) As soon as he’d found out her mother was the University’s Chancellor, he called her ‘Princess’ every chance he got.   

(4) And then there was the fact that they were technically both Head RAs, and it should’ve just been Clarke, but noooo Bellamy had to be her co-leader, so they were forced to make decisions together, plan together, and just generally interact.

So, yeah, Raven had only asked once.

The 10pm rounds of the dorm were uneventful; some residents couldn’t be bothered to turn down their music when Clarke asked, yet immediately shut it off when Bellamy stepped into the doorway, but that was all. Clarke brooded for the rest of the rounds, and she hoped she could get away with the silence for the duration of the midnight rounds as well.

She probably could’ve done it, too, if the elevator hadn’t gotten stuck between the 5th and 6th floor.    

Clarke wet her lips, looking at the display. The digital number was morphed halfway between the two floors; Bellamy stepped forward quickly, pressing firmly on the **Open Doors** button. Then on the **5** button, then on the **6** one, then the **Open Doors** one again.

While he kept up the frenzy, Clarke pulled out her phone and the on-call phone, checking both for coverage; nothing.

Clarke realized Bellamy was still pressing the buttons, moving on to the whole panel.

“It’s an old building,” she said, reluctantly breaking her self-imposed code of silence, “punching a hole in the controls isn’t going to change that.”

“We have to get out of here.”

There was a raw edge to his voice that caught Clarke’s attention. His shoulders were rising and falling quickly, to match his breathing, and his hands didn’t still on the panel.

“The library shuts at midnight, so lots of residents should be on their way back now,” she reasoned, trying to make her voice reassuring, “And when they get here, and the elevator doesn’t come, they’ll go complain to someone at the desk. They’ll try to call us, realize the line is dead, and then they’ll call someone to fix it.”

“Yeah, but how long is that going to take?” his voice snapped and Clarke lifted a shoulder in a shrug.

Probably upwards of 40 minutes but no way was she about to say that, with Bellamy looking around like being stuck in an elevator with her was the worst thing that could possibly happen. Clarke frowned slightly, noticing again the tightness of his jaw and suddenly remembering his response to a ‘Worst Fears’ icebreaker from an RA retreat at the start of the semester: Bellamy Blake was claustrophobic.   

“Bellamy,” she said gently, working to keep her voice even, “I know this is—”

“I’m fine!” he interrupted her harshly, stepping back from the panel and striding to the opposite end of the elevator, where he started pacing. He could only get three steps in before he reached another wall, at which point he did a sharp about face and set off in another direction.

She watched him for a moment, crossing her arms. “Okay, clearly you’re not.”

He leveled a glare at her, not breaking his stride.

Clarke raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

She tried to subtly check her watch; the time read 12:06. At 12:08, he stopped pacing, just nervously tapping his foot and crossing and uncrossing his arms. At 12:11 he started hyperventilating, and Clarke couldn’t just sit there and watch it.

“Alright, come on,” she stepped in front of him and held his shoulders to stop the pacing and make him focus on her, “If you keep that up you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“We’re stuck,” he panted, “Clarke, we’re stuck and--”

“And we’re okay,” she said soothingly.

His mouth was slack as he focused on her. She felt his brown eyes searching hers, and his breathing quieted slightly; the corners of Clarke’s mouth turned up in an uncertain smile. “See? You’re okay.”

Of course, saying that was the actual definition of tempting fate, and something creaked in the elevator shaft, something loud. Though the elevator didn’t move, Bellamy’s eyes snapped from hers and when he looked back at her, they were wide with panic; he pulled away from her, retreating to the far wall of the elevator, his chest heaving with shaking breaths.

Clarke’s arms fell to her sides.

She could leave him there. Retreat to another corner, play some game on her phone, or type out another paragraph of the essay due Friday in her notes. Wait it out.

But her watch said it wasn’t even 12:15, and that was too long for Bellamy to keep breathing the way he was.

Clarke took a cautious step forward, and his eyes fell to hers, wary as she lifted her arms.

“Just trust the pre-med student, would you?” she muttered. She picked up his hands, setting one on his stomach, just beneath his ribs, and the other on his chest. He was frowning, watching her, and she glanced up at him, reprimanding herself for her awful timing in noticing what a calming color his eyes were.

She looked back down, focusing on their hands again.

“Okay, breathe through your nose. One deep breath, slowly,” she instructed. As he inhaled, she felt his stomach move, and she lifted the pressure on that hand, pushing down on his chest. “Now let it out, through your mouth this time.”

He complied and she switched the pressure, keeping his stomach still and letting his chest puff out.

“Good,” she glanced up at him, almost smiling, “Now, again.”

She could feel him shaking under her hands, trying to focus on the rhythm of breathing. His eyes were fixed on the wall opposite them, and he was sweating. Clarke pulled at the sleeve of her cardigan, covering her hand with it before reaching up to wipe his forehead. His eyes fluttered down to hers at the gesture and she swallowed quickly, looking away. “Uh, good. Again.”

She counted ten shaking breaths before she stepped back. Her hands felt...how cliche was it to say they felt empty? She flexed her fingers, and nodded shortly, absently brushing her hair out of her face.

Technically, she knew now was when she jumped to the soothing ‘it’s all good, you’re here with me and it’s safe; let me talk louder than your anxiety’ step, but something told her that wouldn’t work with Bellamy. It worked with actual friends, people whose stories she knew, whose hearts she could actually read.

All she knew about Bellamy was that he was a miserable Head RA, and a history nerd to boot.

Which gave her an idea.

She plopped back down to the ground, patting the floor beside her. “Come on, sit. You’re like super into mythology, right?”

His breathing was still uneven, but he managed a suspicious nod, and sank to the floor next to her. 

She nodded right back. “So you’d definitely know the Captain of The Tuscarora, then. Watch those breaths for me; exhale for at least five seconds each time, okay?”

There was a shift in his breathing as he started to count, and Clarke studied her nails. The goal was to make him focus on something other than the elevator, and if she were right…

“The Captain of what?” he said gruffly, feigning disinterest, and Clarke hid a triumphant smile.

Clarke leaned her head back, and she cleared her throat before she began to tell the story. “They said he washed ashore as a baby, beached in a small coastal town. He signed aboard his first ship when he was twelve, and before long he had his own ship, _The Tuscarora_. She was so tall that her masts had to be hinged, to avoid catching on the moon, and there was stable onboard so that the crew could get from one end of her to the other.” She paused, “What’s the Greek version of a kraken?”

“Probably Cetus,” Bellamy’s voice was still strained, but it had lost the desperate timbre. He was still pretending to be uninvested in her story, and shrugged, “This sea serpent that Perseus fought.”

“Okay, sure. Well, they were, like, sworn enemies. He finally defeated the thing by trapping it in a whirlpool for eternity.”

She felt his eyes on her, and she lowered her head to look at him. His expression was unreadable, his breath still coming in measured spurts. He coughed. “So?”

Clarke blinked. “What?”

“The story, Clarke,” Bellamy said amusedly, “What happened?”

“Oh,” she shook her head sharply, “Um, this huge hurricane blew in, so strong that even _The Tuscarora_ was quaking under the fury of the storm, and smaller ships were going down all over the place. The captain tied a rope around his waist and dove into the angry sea, pulling as many men as he could to safety, before directing _The Tuscarora_ to port. Once all the men they’d saved were on land, he went back to the ship, checked her sails for the damage, unfurling the great lengths of canvas. At that moment, the last wind of the hurricane swept through the port: the sails filled and _The Tuscarora_ lifted, carried off into the heavens.”

She’d felt the tension slip out of him as she kept talking, but she was surprised at how much calmer his breathing had become. She realized he was watching her, and she turned her head slightly to look back at him. “What?”

Bellamy’s mouth turned upwards, an almost smile. “Don’t get me wrong; great story. It just wasn’t mythology, was it?”

“Sure it was.”

Bellamy’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, well it wasn’t Greek mythology.”

Clarke went back to her nails. “I don’t think I ever promised it was.”

Bellamy huffed; it might’ve been a laugh. “For a second there, you had me worried.”

“What, that you’d skipped a couple pages in the Iliad?”

Again, the almost laugh. “Something like that.”

Clarke smiled. “Well your classicist self can rest assured. It’s mythology alright, but a lot more recent than Greece.”

“How much more?”

“Like, the 1800s.”

“American?”

“Like apple pie.”

Bellamy hummed, a contented sound like he was amused and not surprised. “So, what was this captain’s name?”

“Alfred Bulltop Stormalong.”

“I can see why you didn’t lead with that.”

Clarke laughed, but then a memory flitted across her mind, and her voice was soft when she spoke again. “It was one of the stories my dad used to tell. At our house in the Cape, on summer nights. We’d have a fire on the beach, sit under the stars and tell tall tales.”

She trailed off and beside her, Bellamy was still. “He must’ve told it a lot, for you to tell it that well,” he said at length, and Clarke appreciated the effort.

“He did, yeah.” She didn’t want to finish the thought, so she lifted her voice to brighten the mood. “Astonishingly enough, there aren’t as many New England legends as there are Greek and Roman.”

“Quelle surprise,” Bellamy said sarcastically, letting her move on. “So, a house in Cape Cod, huh?”

Clarke winced, knowing where this was going. “Princess, I know,” she said, before he could.

Bellamy grinned. “Actually, I was going to ask if you’ve ever sailed. But if the glass slipper fits…” 

“Oh. Um, no, I don’t sail. I don’t like getting in water when you can’t see the bottom of it.”

“See, now that is when I would say ‘princess’.”

Clarke bit her lip, seeing his point. “That’s fair.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Bellamy looked over at her. “Thank you.”

Clarke toyed with the weave of her cardigan, feeling the weight of his eyes. “You’ve been doing that a lot.”

“Saying thanks?”

“Staring at me.”

Bellamy looked pointedly around the elevator and Clarke rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay, we’re in a metal box and there’s not much competition here.”

“Well, there’s not much out there, either.”

Clarke snorted.

“What?” he asked, sounding actually confused.

“You don’t have to do that, Bellamy.”

“Do what?”

Clarke raised an eyebrow, pulling at a loose yarn at the end of the sleeve. “We’re a little past the Compliments To Smooth Over Troubled Waters stage, don’t you think?”

“Okay, so what stage are we in?”

Clarke let go of the cardigan, shifting her legs under her so she could turn to face him. “Bellamy. We are not DTR-ing right now. We don’t even have an R to DT.”

“That’s redundant.”

“Bellamy.”

“Clarke,” he echoed stubbornly. “Come on, humor me. What else are we going to do?”

“You could go back to counting your breaths; that was a lot more silent.”

“Yeah, but then what’re you going to do?”

She went back to her cardigan. “I don’t know; I’ve got a pretty solid start on unravelling my sweater.”

He scowled, and Clarke thought he looked a little disappointed.

Which was weird.

Because what was there to be disappointed by?

She realized that he was watching her again, and Clarke sighed. “Look, I don’t know what you—”

“When was the last time I voted against you during a staff meeting?”

Clarke blinked at his interruption. “What?”

“Or the last time you worked a closing shift at the desk, the night before a Bio lab?”

“Bio lab was junior year.”

“Yeah, and after your first late shift and early lab, you told Raven how you could barely focus on your classes for the rest of the day.”

Clarke’s eyes narrowed. “You said you convinced the hall director to hire a new front desk worker so you could get all the new RAs to like you, since they’d have less shifts.”

“Well how else was I supposed to say ‘Hey, Clarke Griffin, what’s it going to take to get you to stop hating me’?”

Bellamy ran a hand through his hair and Clarke stared at him.

This couldn’t be happening. 

Because if it was, that meant that Bellamy Blake had stopped being self-obsessed about a year and a half ago. And that every overbearing thing he’d done since then—insisting that someone else take the on-call phone, making a big deal out of rescheduling their weekly meetings so she could eat lunch, shadowing her whenever she had to deal with kicking drunken guys out of her residents’ dorms—wasn’t him being overbearing or doubting her. It was actually him being pretty damn considerate, and her not noticing.

“I don’t hate you,” she said haltingly.

“Why, because ‘hate’ is a strong word?” he said wryly, leaning his head back against the elevator wall, his eyes closed and his expression sardonic.

Clarke bit her tongue. “Nah, I hate plenty of things. Wasps. That weird bracelet trend. The fact that most people say ‘I could care less’ when they mean ‘I couldn’t care less’. You’re more like…a strong annoy.”

“Please, Clarke, I’m blushing.”

She knew he was trying to make light of it, but that made it worse. She sighed. “Did you really make Campus Living hire someone new so that I didn’t have to work late before my Bio lab?”

“You’re not exactly Miss Congeniality when you’re sleep deprived,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, well, apparently I’m not even her when I’m well rested.” She looked over at him, his eyes still closed to block out the elevator. Presumably her, too. “I had no idea.”

“I know,” Bellamy cracked an eye open, “I should’ve said something.”

“Like what?”

“Uh, I promise I’m a half-decent guy; sorry you can’t tell because the only way I can talk to you and keep some semblance of cool is by being a smart ass.”

Clarke smiled. “Hey, Bellamy?”

His other eye opened. “Yeah.”

“I think you’re more than halfway. Like a solid 68% decent, I’d say.”

His mouth twitched, but she was pretty sure his eyes were smiling. “Thanks, Princess.”

So this was new.

It certainly felt new, and different, and unfamiliar, and…and she didn’t get to properly think through it, because Bellamy’s breathing was getting shallower. “How much longer, do you think?”

Her watch said 12:37.

“Any minute now,” she said quickly, turning the watch inside her wrist.

“You wouldn’t have any more American legends to tell, would you?”

She did.

She talked about a man with a pet bear who threw himself off cliffs to hear the cheer of a crowd. Then a man who was a hero and a legend, but gave up the Wild West for a woman he loved, and they moved to California. Halfway through Pecos Bill, they heard a clanging echo through the elevator shaft, and Clarke heard Bellamy’s breath catch again. His fists were clenched at his sides and she didn’t think about it when she reached out her hand for one of his. There was a mechanical grinding; the technician was here and they were working on the elevator. She cradled his fingers in her lap, telling of Joe Margarac, when the elevator creaked and began a slow descent.   

It slipped just above the third floor.

Clarke yelped and Bellamy’s grip on her hand tightened so much it hurt.

They only fell for half a second, and then the line caught and the creaking resumed. Clarke’s heart tried to find its normal rhythm and she let out a shaky breath. She looked over at Bellamy and his eyes were wide, fixed on the door.

“Hey,” she squeezed his hand, “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

His eyes fluttered, and then he was on his feet in a moment, prying at the doors of the elevator. “We have to get out of here, Clarke,” he said desperately, fingers clawing at the doors.

She stood too, wishing she were stronger, or at least taller. “We will; they’ll get us out,” she insisted, trying to get between him and the door, “Bellamy, you’re going to hurt your hands.”

“They’re not coming; it’s been an hour.”

“If you get the door open and we’re not on the ground floor, it’ll stop the elevator all over again,” she pleaded, pushing at him. “You have to stop, please, let go.”

But he wasn’t listening, couldn’t hear her over his increasingly ragged gasping for air.

Clarke had to stop him from hyperventilating again, had to get him to control his breathing, or at least give his body a chance to restart, so it could remember how it feels to inhale like normal. So she stopped pushing at his arms, stopped trying to pull him from the door, and just ducked between him and the door. Reached up for his shoulders, pulled him down to her, and kissed him.

For a moment, he was frozen, his lips pressed against hers. And then she felt him respond; one of his hands falling from the door to rest lightly on the back of her head. It was a gentle touch, not pulling her closer but cradling her, making sure she was there. It was hesitant and it was soft but then he was kissing her back, his lips moving over hers as she slanted her head, letting herself linger for a moment before she pulled back.

Her hands were still on his shoulders and she held him there, their foreheads almost touching, and she listened to him slowly let out a breath.

“You should’ve tried that first,” he whispered, and she looked up to find those brown eyes so close to her. A flush spread up her neck and Clarke bit her lip to hide a smile.

The elevator dinged.

She stepped back and touched her hair nervously, just as the door slid open. The hall director was there, along with a fireman and the electrician, all various levels of relieved that it was just two RAs who’d been stuck. They stepped out of the elevator as the hall director taped an **Out of Order** sign on the door, and then went into the lobby to file the incident report for Campus Living. Fifteen minutes into filling in her part of the file, Clarke realized Bellamy’s hand was still holding hers. His thumb was stroking over the tops of her fingers in a gentle motion, and she looked up to find him, yet again, watching her. Clarke shook her head, going back to the report, wondering if maybe she and Raven should’ve traded on-call partners a long time ago.  


End file.
